A blog about my life experiences and teachings that inspire me.

"No truth is so sublime but it may be trivial tomorrow. People wish to be settled; Only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them." -Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Male, female, son, daughter, sibling, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, child, teenager, adult, bachelor, serial monogamist, spouse, parent, professional, loser, winner, victim, victor, and on and on. Throughout the course of our lives, there are countless roles we play and each one tends to dictate that we present a certain version of ourselves to the world: a version that we or the world deem as appropriate or expected. This can leave us feeling restricted and disconnected as we try to decipher what aspects of ourselves we can or cannot reveal within the confines of each role.

Sometimes we are able to redefine a role but then there we are again within the boundaries of that new definition. We tend to believe that some combination of these roles does or will define who we are, yet that winning combination never ceases to transform. We tend to seek out particular societal, familial and/or political roles in order to validate our sense of worth and identity: once I am a business leader, parent, politician, activist, wealthy person, artist, teacher, etc, then I’ll be whole, we think. Yet, no matter how hard we try, the parts never seem to add up to a whole.

Have you ever become so intensely identified with a role, that if that role was threatened, you felt as though you would cease to exist? Yet, if that role was extinguished, although possibly terrifying and painful for a time, maybe you eventually found that you still existed? Maybe you felt a bit or maybe even a lot relieved to be free of the now revealed limited confines of that role? Maybe you were then able to see things that were previously obstructed from view? Maybe you were then free to imagine infinite possibilities for yourself and the world again, rather than just one or a few? Maybe you realized that the previous role may have once been relevant in your life but had actually ceased to be so for quite some time and was in fact impeding your evolution? Maybe you pondered that if you no longer believed, as you once so intensely did, that that role defined who you are, maybe who you are is beyond any role that you could ever play? Maybe you ruminated on how defining yourself by any particular role, no matter how grand, might be to diminish the unimaginable vastness of who you truly are?

To be clear, roles can contain many positive aspects to them, such as motivating us to get out into the world and make a positive contribution. Yet what I have found to be limiting is to constrain ourselves, to define ourselves solely by any one or combination of roles as it can close our eyes, ears and hearts to the evolutionary guidance and callings that do not emanate from or fit neatly inside of any of them. No role can ever explain, define or contain the infinite, ever changing explanation of who you are and who you can be.

What if, like the changing of the weather, we could frictionlessly float between roles, engaging completely in all that we choose, yet holding tightly onto none of them? What if we could cease to define ourselves by anything other than our infinite potential? Then, upon releasing ourselves of those chains, what if we could also do that for our perspective on another? The ripple effect could be a powerful one.

I find that individual manifestation often advances from emotion, to thought, to speech/action, then loops back to emotion: yet is not rigidly held to that order. Hence, speech is a major force in the manifestation of our internal and external lives. Our emotions and thoughts crystalize into what we utter with our voices, which sends a direct message to the Universe/Nature/God as to what we believe and want to be true. Yet regularly, either out of fear, anger, jealousy, manipulation or a poor attempt at humor, we say things that we do not mean, believe to be true, or want in our lives. This frequently unconscious act, especially in repetition, sends a message to the people in our lives and ultimately, the Universe/Nature/God, that our speech is not to be trusted. This becomes problematic when we try to use our speech for conscious manifestation of something that we actually want in our lives.

One of the most common misuses of speech that most of us are prone to, as it is quite normalized in our society, is sarcasm.

Sarcasm (Cambridge Dictionary)

Remarks that mean the opposite of what they say, made to criticize someone or something in a way that is amusing to others but annoying to the person criticized.

Sarcasm (Merriam Webster Dictionary)

A sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain.

Sarcasm is one of the lowest forms of humor. It’s etymology can be traced back to the Greek verb sarkazein, which initially meant "to tear flesh like a dog." Have you ever known someone who’s speech is so sarcastic that you never know when to take them seriously or not? This can be quite uncomfortable, frustrating and can make them, or at least their word, hard to trust. If we extrapolate that dynamic out to one’s relationship with the Universe/Nature/God, we start to get a larger picture as to how this could play out on a macro level in our lives. Below is my personal directive, which I am not perfect at implementing in any way but when I do, there is a lot less confusion and friction in my life and a lot more conscious creation of what my heart truly desires.

Release sarcasm, say only what you know and wish to be true.

If I don’t have enough time, I’m not meditating daily, using my time efficiently, being present, respecting other people’s time, respecting and creating boundaries around my own time.

If I don’t have enough money, I’m not meditating daily and my relationship with and perspective on money has gone askew. I’m not being grateful for what I have, giving what I can, and doing enough of what I love.

If I hate or feel un-inspired by my work or feel that I don’t have enough of it, I’m not meditating daily and not doing enough of what I love, because I love it. I’m not being grateful for what I have, not dreaming, not knowing and voicing that I, like each and everyone of us, deserve the best, and deserve to do work that makes me come alive. I’m not getting my ego out of the way and letting the universe work through me. I’m not asking how I can be of service to the world. I’m not taking enough risk, tuning into true desires and leaping into the unknown.

If I feel my friends, or family, or partner aren’t appreciating me, there is a good chance I am not appreciating them. I’m not meditating daily. I’ve slipped into a narrow and rigid idea as to who they are, what they think, and what their intentions are, hence I’ve stopped paying attention and have forgotten that each of us are infinitely nuanced and ever changing. If I feel a lack of love, I’m the one that needs to bring more love.

“My life is so hard because…I don’t have enough money, or time, I hate my work, my friends or partner don’t appreciate me, my family is the worst, my health is bad, etc.” These are all reasons we come up with as to why we can’t be happy now. Often if it’s not one, it’s the other. The common denominator tends to be, “It’s not me that’s the problem, it’s that or them.

Personally, whenever I find myself operating at a low emotional frequency: sad, depressed, irritated, impatient, angry, jealous, or judgmental, I can bet that I have allowed myself to slip into a victim state of consciousness. I’ve started believing that something or someone out there is in the way of and therefore has the power to control my happiness. Hence, no matter what happens circumstantially, it’s a losing battle.

When I become aware of my mistaken perspective and am able to move towards complete ownership and responsibility for my emotional and mental state and therefore my physical circumstance, I gain the capability to release all circumstances and/or people of ultimate blame for my internal state, resulting in my feeling empowered. I then re-introduce all of the beliefs and practices that keep me healthy, inspired, grateful, and energized and even before I take any direct action toward the circumstances or people that I thought were at fault, my experience begins to change.

What I expect, I experience.

What I look for, I find.

What I pay attention to, grows.

Thereupon, if I still feel it is necessary, I am able to take action accordingly towards shifting my circumstances, yet now I am able to act from a place of inner sufficiency, fulfillment, confidence, gratitude and surrender. Before long, what transpires is frictionless effort, flow, abundance, reciprocity and progressive change.

As always, it’s an inside job first: evolutionary, progressive change happens not from the outside in, but from the inside out. So whenever we are feeling low, or victimized, I find it powerful to ask, “How might I, my perspective, my approach, my resistance, actually be at the root, or at least partly responsible for this issue in my life?” Merely by asking this question, looking inward rather than projecting outward, I find that everything begins to change, for the better.

Sometimes we can let what was once a source of joy, become a source of stress. In my life, I let that happen with dance. But often, the thing, circumstance or person we believe is responsible for our stress is actually not to blame. What's to blame is our own non-acceptance and resistance to the thing, circumstance or person. In my case, it wasn’t dance itself that caused me stress, It was my perspective on it, association to it, attempted control of it, narrow idea as to what role it was to play in my life, and my rigid and needy attachment to it. As it turned out, only once I let dance and my understanding of it go, once I surrendered it completely, could dance and I fall in love again.

STRESS CAN FEEL LIKE:

Speculation

Fear

Rigid ideas as to who and what we are supposed to be and do

Control

Comparison

Jealousy

Perfectionism

Resistance

Struggle

Seriousness

The need for external validation

Busyness

Running

Surrender often gets a bad wrap, being associated with giving up, giving in, weakness or being taken advantage of. Yet over the years my understanding and experience of surrender has expanded immensely.

Life doesn’t happen to us, but for us.

There is a walking Labyrinth that I like to visit from time to time. One of the first treats is just before you step onto the path, there lies a rock with two words carved into it, “BEGIN AGAIN.” A phrase that has become quite important to me over the years.

The pebble path ahead is narrow and complex. Along the journey there are a few internal behaviors I often notice, such as, my trying to speed though it and get to the finish line. When I become conscious of this urge, I try to slow down significantly, even to a pace that makes me a bit uncomfortable at first, which offers me the opportunity to become more acutely aware of my body and my surroundings. I then often catch myself trying to look ahead and map out the route, which is always futile. I try to bring my attention back to the present and take one slow step at a time, reminding myself that I don’t need to know the route because there is no way that I can fall off path. By about half-way through, I sometimes question if I am covering ground that I already have. Only to remember that the zigzag design of the path repeatedly brings me back to areas I have previously covered, yet not exactly the same spot, but one isle over, about one foot to the right or left from where I once was. If I look up, I notice that even that one foot of difference in position has enabled me to see some surrounding foliage that I wasn’t able to see from the very similar but not the same spot I previously inhabited. Lessons abound.

I find that the microcosm often, if not always, reflects the macrocosm.

Sometimes in life, we think that we are finished with a certain thought process, emotion, behavior or type of relationship, only to at some point begrudgingly find ourselves back in the thick of it. We then tend to beat ourselves up, assessing that we obviously haven’t progressed at all in our lives. This reaction is completely understandable, I know it well.

Yet this actually cannot be true: there is no possible way for us, ever, to be in the exact same circumstance, thought, emotion, behavior or relationship. It may be incredibly similar, there may be a repeating theme, but you do not have the same body, mind, or wisdom that you had yesterday and the world is a different place than it was yesterday. The only constant is change. In the midst of a repetitive thought, the mere fact of you realizing that you have had this thought before, changes the nature of the thought. You now have a broader level of awareness: you know that you don’t like thinking this thought and what the probable outcome of this thought is. Even if you then still repeat the thought and again experience the probable outcome, you now experience it from a broader level of consciousness, a knowingness that you did not previously have. You have done more research and gathered more evidence as to what you would rather do next time. Although maybe not as expeditious as we would prefer, there has been progress.

As much as we would like for it to be, progress is not linear. It does not move in a straight line but rather in zigzags, circles, reverse, up, down, left and right. Yet, if you step far enough back, you will see that all of this apparently unruly movement is still, overtime, moving us forward. When we re-experience similar thoughts, behaviors, emotions, and circumstances that we thought we had moved beyond, it often signals that we are not finished with them yet. There are still aspects of them for us to rumble with, to process, understand, learn and grow from.

You can’t not change. You can’t not grow. Although, the greater our level of awareness and our understanding as to the mechanics of progressive change, the more we can expedite the process.

Most of us are on the run: running out of time, out of chances, away from our thoughts, emotions, and fears, running from love, pain, trauma, shame, responsibility, failure, success, lies, truth, and ultimately ourselves. The problem is, as I’m sure many of you have experienced, is that whatever we run from, only gets bigger, stronger and faster the longer we run from it. Wherever we try to run away to: another job, friend, lover, obsession, device, drug, alcohol, food, house, state, or country, there it is, waiting for us.

I started running when I was about seven years old. I now had a secret to keep and a lie to uphold and therefore my life could no longer be innocent, authentic and improvisational. In hindsight, If I was to sit still for too long, maybe the confusion, hurt, fear, and ultimately the truth, would catch up to me. So, this running took many forms throughout my teens and twenties. I ran scared from my relationship with my Father as his mental health declined, from intimate relationships when they became too close, from friends when they were too honest, from play because it didn’t make me win, from stillness because busyness was the only thing that made me feel safe and worthy, and from the truth because I was told it would destroy me.

Imagine the game of “Whack-A-Mole,” as soon as you hit one Mole down, another one pops up. As soon as you hit that one down, two others pop up, and as the game advances, the Moles keep popping up faster and faster until you can barely manage. This was akin to my emotional experience: fear, push it down, sadness, push it down, anxiety and anger, push them down, and faster and faster until the pace became so rapid that I eventually fell into complete nervous breakdowns. The time to run, was up. My nervous system punched me in the gut and said, “Sit down, you’re not going anywhere. It is time for you to stop, look, listen and speak.”

Seven years ago today, I finally stopped running away.

As terrifying as it was, once I surrendered to being with my fear, anxiety, depression and trauma, they turned out not to be fatal. Once I gave them my full attention, they slowly started to change, soften, slow down, and shrink. They then started to teach me about the deepest parts of myself and therefore, humanity. They turned out to actually, at their core, all be motivated by love: for me, my family and friends, and for life itself. Along this journey, E.M.D.R., Somatic Experiencing and Vedic Meditation were and are essential allies.

I have learned that not all running is bad, the question is, are we running away or running towards? Instead of running from fear, we can run towards it. Instead of running from love, we can run towards it. Instead of running from life, we can run towards it, into it and with it. Everything that we run from contains infinite wisdom for us, if we could only stop, look and listen. Believe me, I still find myself running at times, but thankfully it never lasts for too long anymore. It is truly as Joseph Campbell said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

Running away is a race we cannot win. Running towards ends the race and begins the dance.

I am deeply sorry for the abuse and/or neglect that you suffered as a child and for all that you have been through since, internally and externally. I honor and resonate with the confusion, heartbreak, isolation, sadness, anger, numbness, dissociation, depression, anxiety, fear, suicidal thoughts and actions, emptiness, insomnia, drug or alcohol abuse, and compulsion you may have in the past or may be currently enduring.

Simultaneously...

I am hopeful for your continued healing; for the possibility of a deeper capacity for compassion, empathy and love after the monumental rebuilding of one's own heart. As Rumi said, "The wound is the place where the light enters you.” If not already, I wish for you a greater experience of belonging, once having gained the courage to speak your truth and being embraced by the incredible community of survivors, worldwide. You are NOT alone. Together, we stand.

To the Parents, Family, Partners and Friends of Survivors:

I am sorry for the confusion, fear, sadness, heartbreak, depression, anger, helplessness, guilt, and isolation you may have felt or may currently feel in relation to your loved one's experience of child abuse and correlated symptoms. Simultaneously, I am excited for the possible expansion of consciousness, knowledge, wisdom, understanding, compassion, adaptability, and love that you may have already experienced or that may be on the horizon for you in response to your loved one's trauma. Although unfortunate, I understand if you were or are not able to understand and hold your loved one’s pain. Alternatively, I am infinitely grateful for the unconditional love and support you may be able to provide to your loved one. Believe me, it makes all the difference in the world.

To everyone:

Child abuse is one of the darkest aspects of humanity, which is why, generally speaking, we’d rather not face it, we’d rather not talk about it, we’d rather deny it. But this is the only way child abuse is able to be perpetrated and perpetuated; in DARKNESS and in SILENCE. As hard as it may be, we must face it, we must talk about it; to the darkness and silence, we must bring LIGHT and SOUND. We must stand together, listen to survivors, help in the healing, and above all else, protect our children. Because if not us, who? If not now, when?

What if there is nobody and no being that you ever have to prove anything to?

What if we didn’t anthropomorphize, try to place upon God, the Universe, Nature, you name it, our limited small-self human behaviors such as insecurity, judgement, jealousy, anger, resentment and punishment?

What if no one ever actually does anything from a place of absolutely understanding or knowing they are wrong?

What if from day one of our lives, and every day since, no matter what we have done, we are enough and worthy?

What if we never placed upon anyone, no matter who they are, the impossible task and burden of making us happy?

What if the source of creativity, love, forgiveness, hope and joy is absolutely inexhaustible?

What if all of life was never, is not and will never be a competition?

DISCLAIMER: The following email is about an intense adult subject matter. It absolutely concerns children but should only be taken in by a minor of a certain age under the guidance of a parent or mindful guardian. If you are under 18, please take this seriously.

Aloha Wade’s Window : The Blog subscribers.

I wanted to share an important part of my healing journey with you.

This Sunday and Monday, (March 3rd + 4th, 2019) on HBO, airs an HBO film entitled LEAVING NEVERLAND that chronicles the years of sexual abuse that myself and James Safechuck suffered as children at the hands of Michael Jackson, as well as the emotional and mental effects, the years of living in silence, fear, and lies, our eventual facing of the truth, beginning to speak it to the world and the fallout from it all on us as individuals, as well as our families.

But even more important than myself, James and Michael Jackson, is that our story is, in many ways, akin to most child abuse survivor's stories. Child sexual abuse is unfortunately not something that only happened back then, or over there, but is happening here and now, in the entertainment business, our schools, churches, neighborhoods and everywhere. It is a film that I hope will help continue and expand the conversation about child sexual abuse and be another small step towards facilitating healing for survivors, as well as shedding light and raising awareness as to hopefully move us toward greater prevention.

The film is 4-hours and airs in 2 parts. Part 1 on Sunday, Part 2 on Monday. Read more about it all, the airing schedule, and watch the trailer HERE.

Also, immediately after Part 2 airs on Monday evening, there is a one-hour special with OPRAH, myself, James, and the filmmaker Dan Reed, entitled AFTER NEVERLAND, whichsimultaneously airs on HBO and Oprah’s OWN Network. It continues and expands the conversation in a room filled with child abuse survivors and advocates and we also have the privilege of hearing from several of them. I think it could be quite a healing experience to watch, especially after taking in the intensity of the film.

On that note, another DISCLAIMER: Nothing is left off the table in the film. There are extremely graphic and detailed explanations of the sexual abuse James and I experienced as young children. So be aware that it may be quite difficult to take in and possibly triggering, especially for survivors. Take care of yourself accordingly.

HBO has also created an incredible RESOURCE PAGE for survivors as well as parents of survivors and people who are responsible for children. Please take a moment to check it out.

If you DO NOT have access to HBO, it will be available online simultaneously with the television broadcast. You can sign up for a free online trial of HBO Streaming. Click HERE.

1 in 4 girls. 1 in 6 boys. These are the statistics of boys and girls that are sexually abused as children. Child sexual abuse can only happen in darkness and silence. Together, with our eyes, ears and voices, step by step, let’s change those numbers.

We live in a day and age, unlike any other, where no matter who you are or where you live, if you have access to the internet and/or a smart phone, your work, creativity, or message can be seen and heard all over the world. The question is not, how famous can I become? The questions are, what will I do with that power? Am I going to contribute something negative or positive to the world?

As per usual, the device is neutral, it’s how we use it that matters. Social media, for example, can either be a dangerous addiction we use to try and find self-worth, to numb, to disseminate lies, hate, judgement, to perpetuate nonsense and spread fear. Or we can use it as a mechanism to proliferate truth, love, progressive ideas, creativity, hope, equality, awareness of social injustice, charity, community mobilization, you name it.

Why would we choose to amplify negativity in the world when each and every one of us is affected by it? As Dylan said, “The answer is blowing in the wind.” Why would we choose to amplify positivity in the world? Because each and every one of us benefits from it.

What we pay attention to, grows.

So how can we use our platform, be it the world stage, our place of worship, our workplace and/or our social media feed, to elevate the collective human experience? And how can we do it not by preaching from some moral high ground, but by humbly sharing our questions, experiences, knowledge, ideas and dreams in a way that acknowledges, includes and supports all of humanity?

G’day mates, from Queensland, Australia. It’s been eight years since I’ve been to my homeland! We’re having a beautiful time with family and feeling infinitely grateful.

As 2018 comes to a close, it’s wonderful to reflect upon what occurred, what we learned and then move our attention towards what we want in the new year. Often, our hopes and dreams for the new year are quite externally focused, such as on career, finances, acquisition, etc. This is not necessarily a bad thing but can be troublesome if not balanced out with internal goals. The funny thing about external goals is that whether we know it or not, what they are actually about is trying to achieve internal goals of happiness, peace, fulfillment, and worthiness via external means. Unfortunately, this method rarely produces promising or sustainable results.

What if we decide that 2019 is going to be the greatest year of our life so far? The happiest, healthiest, most purposeful, meaningful, and most fun yet.

What if this is the year we learn to meditate and/or dedicate ourselves to a daily practice?

What if this is the year we start eating and exercising as though our body was a temple?

What if this is the year we treat ourselves and others with kindness, appreciation and love?

What if this is the year we decide to speak our truth, with mindfulness yet unapologetically?

What if this is the year we reach out and try to find common ground with those we feel we have absolutely nothing in common?

What if this is the year we start treating our environment like a place we, our children and our children’s children would want to or possibly could live?

What if we decide first that we are worthy, we are good enough, we belong, and then we take action, rather than trying to acquire those feelings in response to action?

What if gratitude was the beginning, middle and end touchstones of every day?

What if those were the foundational goals? Then, I believe, the bi-product is that the external success we also wish for would be a natural outpouring of all of the above.

Only way to find out, is to try….

Wishing you health, peace, love and the revelation of your fulfillment.

I feel as though we are conditioned to be more and more externally focused as we grow older. But ironically, the reason for the external focus is that it is supposed to make us feel better internally: “You’ll be happy when you get this job, this car, this house, this money, this lover,” and so on.

I believed this whole heartedly for many years until I got all those things and what I found was, an amazing job to be unhappy in, a beautiful house and car to be unhappy in, money to keep fruitlessly trying to buy my unhappiness away and lovers to momentarily distract me from my unhappiness and/or support me when I was unhappy.

Then I found insight orientedtherapy, meditation, spiritual text and quality time in nature and realized slowly that it’s actually an inside job first, then that work informs and manifests the external experience, not the other way around.

Most of us keep trying to import our fulfillment and our happiness from the outside in, but the way it truly flows is that via doing the internal work to realize completely that we are already fulfilled, we are already enough, we are already lovable, we can then export our fulfillment, happiness and love into our work, into our relationships, and into our financial activities. Our internal life is then not dependent upon the inevitable ups and downs of our external life but rather our external life is dependent upon how diligently we focus on taking care of our internal life.

Often we are solely focused on the external actions we think we need to take, which can leave us to deal with the unexpected mental and emotional consequences of them, only after it’s too late to change the actions.

Why are we doing what we are doing? Do we know? Do we know it intimately? Do we know where our why came from? Is it from our parents, our teachers, our peers, our mentors, society at large or is it from our own personal experience and beliefs? And how does that why make us feel?

Sometimes we’re so focused purely on the actions we think we need to take, that we don’t stop to ask ourselves why we are taking them. Or maybe we did ask ourselves why in the beginning, but somewhere along the way we stopped and have just been continuing to routinely perform the actions.

The trouble with this is that the relevancy of everything changes, moment to moment. Our why in the beginning may have been absolutely relevant for us at the time, but may have actually lost its relevancy days, weeks, or years ago. This could point to why certain actions yielded positive results in the past but no longer seem to. Maybe we're now experiencing a lot of friction in response to the same actions that once felt frictionless.

I have found that when we don’t keep checking in with our why, it can be that much easier to unknowingly adopt the why’s of others. Then one day we may wake up, look around and realize we have no idea anymore why we are doing what we are doing: Suddenly it feels so empty or painful.

I started dancing when I was about two years old. My why was simply because I loved it and it felt good. Then I started doing it professionally and after experiencing a lot of external success, I started dancing for more externally focused reasons such as recognition, adulation, fame, power, and money. But I wasn’t checking in with my why's and how they were making me feel, I was blazing forward at a break-neck pace and stopping for nothing. What happened was that I got all those things: adulation, fame, power and money but I wasn’t happy. In the process, my relationship with dance had fallen apart. I no longer had a “why” to dance that felt good or that I even understood, so I quit and tried to erase dance from my life forever. Then after years of self-work, internal space was made and dance flew back into my heart. I remembered and allowed my why to evolve: It feels good, it heals me, it heals others and it enables me a platform to connect with people and hopefully make a positive impact on their lives. I still must keep checking in with that why frequently as relevancy changes, moment to moment.

So, if your charmed, maybe experiment with starting a daily practice of stopping for a moment, prior to taking action, and asking yourself, “why?” Then, notice how that why makes you feel and take action accordingly.

From quite a young age, we are often vehemently taught by our parents, teachers, coaches, mentors and peers how to NOT be vulnerable: How to protect ourselves from all of the people (out there) that want to take advantage of, hurt, defeat, or steal from us. Of course, a certain amount of awareness and training as to how to protect oneself against those (out there) who are of true ill intent is essential but there can also be negative impacts to an out of balance sense of needing to shield oneself from the whole world.

One of my mentors drilled into my seven-year-old mind to never trust anyone, especially women, that everyone will want to take advantage of me for my money and success, so I must be impenetrable, invincible. For many years, one of the ways this teaching manifested in me was a perceived need to be quite distant and cold in certain relationships, particularly business ones but often personal as well. I always felt that I needed to project the image of ultimate success, strength and independence no matter how I truly felt inside, which was often quite the opposite, dictating that I kept people at a safe distance. Allowing myself to be vulnerable, emotional, and exposed was “not an option” for me: therefore, for many years, I did not engage in complete relationships.

The turning point for me was during my second nervous breakdown just over six years ago, I began to reach out to friends and family in a way I had never before, completely revealing my deepest trauma, pain, fears and anxieties to them in the interest of no longer hiding from life and love. The experience was so incredibly freeing and fulfilling and initiated such a deepening of my relationships that I haven’t looked back since. I now relish the opportunity to be vulnerable with people and equally the opportunity to provide people with a safe space to be vulnerable with me, if they so choose. The awesome power of people simply being able to be vulnerable with each other without judgement is something to behold: the healing, communion, and insight that comes forth is unlike anything else I’ve even seen.

I have learned that one of the key determiners of a successful vulnerability exchange is the receivers ability to quietly yet actively listen and not offer any advice unless it is explicitly asked for. What is most needed by the one who is sharing is simply to be heard and understood, that - is - all.

Ultimately, we must be aware that not everyone has the capability to hear, hold, reflect and respond to our vulnerability in an evolutionary way, so after some experimentation, we develop our intuition as to with who and when our vulnerability can be truly and safely received.

In the past I often felt, as I believe a lot of us do, that if I was to be vulnerable and talk about my pain, fears, hopes, etc, that I would be perceived to be weak, small, a mess, immature, not a man, you name it. In contrast, when someone is able to be vulnerable with me, I see in them nothing but courage, strength, insight and love and am filled with total admiration for them.

In our courage to be vulnerable despite our fear, we find true strength.

Gratefully, I now know, that without the ability to be vulnerable, we miss out on a huge juicy chunk of this beautiful thing called life.

I have found gratitude to be one of the most powerful forces in the universe. There are few challenging situations, if any, that gratitude can’t change one’s experience of. If we exercise some effort, especially in the midst of the most difficult experiences of our lives, we can find something, maybe even many things that we can still be grateful for. This is not a means by which to avoid pain; pain is inevitable and important, we must allow ourselves to feel it when it arrives for it often carries with it great lessons. The PRACTICE of GRATITUDE is a means by which to minimize suffering, expedite evolution, strengthen our innate positive manifestation powers and ultimately feel better about whatever is going on. We can constantly PRACTICE gratitude for the past, present and the unknown future.

What we expect, we experience.

What we look for, we find.

What we pay attention to, grows.

These are natural laws of the universe, so let’s enact them skillfully.

SUGGESTED RESEARCH EXPERIMENTS:

Let’s say you are in the depth of a challenging life experience: your sad, or scared, or angry, or some combination of the three. Your energetic frequency is low and as like attracts like, you seem to be drawing more and more negative experiences towards yourself. Even if you don’t quite FEEL it, intellectually participate in the exercise of introducing a grateful thought and the chemical make up of your body and brain will begin to change. Every time a negative thought arrises, systematically replace it with a positive one, one of gratitude. Again, even if you are not FEELING it, do the intellectual work and with consistency it will gradually raise your energetic frequency and create a very real mental and emotional shift in you, which will then be reflected in your outer reality. Also, a grateful thought need not always be a deep and profound thought, take the pressure off, all gratitude is created equal. You could be grateful for peanut butter, comfortable shoes, a short line at Starbucks, your bed, a good Netflix binge, you name it.

Another practice that I have found quite impactful is that I keep a GRATITUDE JAR in my house. Choose any jar you like, give it a gratitude label and a pile of little papers and pen next to it. At least once a day, jot down a simple little gratitude and drop it in the jar. Make sure to put the jar somewhere you are guaranteed to see and be reminded throughout your day.

These small acts can make a profound impact on your day, week and life. If your curious, give them a try and I’d love to hear how it goes. Happy researching.

I heard a beautiful line from my meditation teacher Christian Bevaqua the other night as he was addressing the group. “It is time to let go of suffering as a part of your identity.”

I lived with a lot of personal suffering for a long time. I would set myself up for it over and over again. It has been so powerful for me over the last several years to delineate between pain and suffering. I’ve come to understand that pain is inevitable in life but suffering is optional. Our heart will be broken, we’ll lose a loved one, we’ll lose a job, we’ll be wronged, we’ll get sick, we’ll lose our house, our money, our pride, you name it. Pain will come and pain will go. But suffering is actually caused by our resistance to the pain. “I’m in pain and I hate that I’m in pain, it’s wrong that I’m in pain, it’s not fair, I’ve always been in pain and I’ll always be in pain, why is God, the Universe, etc against me?” This is suffering.

It is our resistance to and denial of WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING that causes our suffering, not the painful experience itself. I am not saying that the pain of our lives is not often very hard to deal with, but we tend to make it 10 times worse by resisting it. Rather than trying our best to flow with it and pay attention to what it is that it is here to teach us.

We all know someone, maybe that someone is ourselves, that always seems to find a way to suffer, no matter the circumstance. “A bad thing happened because bad things always happen to me.” “A good thing happened but I know it won’t last, as soon as I get excited about it, another bad thing will happen.” In this case, it seems that suffering has become a large part of our identity. We don’t like it, but we know it and we find a strange comfort in the unliked known rather than the terrifying unknown. I believe it’s an addiction of sorts. We can’t seem to stop thinking the thing, feeling the thing, doing the thing that we know is bad for us. We can’t seem to keep thinking the thing, feeling the thing, doing the thing that we know is good for us. Often the fear is that if we drop our suffering, who are we? If we drop our story of “my life is so hard” no matter the circumstance, what’s our story?

It’s been several weeks since I have written a Blog entry. I’ve been traveling with the family and teaching, thus private writing time has been hard to come by; not due to a lack of material, let me assure you. 😳

Over the last several years, I have become aware of a phenomenon, first within myself and then my awareness broadened to realize that I am not at all alone in this. I’ve come to know it as, “THE DUST OFF.” Let’s begin with my most current personal example.

I have recently returned from a three-week, multiple-city journey, driven by teaching engagements and sprinkled by familial vacationing accompanied by my wife and son. At the beginning of the trip, I found myself operating at a low frequency, a bit melancholy, slightly irritated, just nervous enough to render myself consistantly uncomfortable and not quite sure as to why. In searching for answers as to the cause of my mental and emotional state, I came up with the following: it had been a few weeks since I had taught so I was feeling out of practice, I was concerned that I was ill-prepared for my upcoming teaching engagements, an old hip problem had flared up, was painful and restrictive, thus leaving me seemingly incapable of physically performing to the best of my ability and finally, I was in the midst of a spiritual practice that was feeling repressive and futile. Next on the agenda was to discover the antidote.

This state permeated the first half of my trip until one evening, I had a tough time falling asleep, which is very rare for me now, with thoughts, fears, and anxieties running high. I woke up early the next morning, some penetrating questions and then answers flowed through me, I had an honest little chat with my wife, I was drawn to read some text which was exactly what I needed to hear and boom, the tide began to shift. Over the next few days, my attitude changed, my hip started improving, I launched into a series of really powerful teaching experiences that broadened my repertoire and reach, I made some courageous moves towards a new dream of mine, I lightened up and here I am now, returned from my trip, inspired and feeling grateful for this most recent “DUST OFF.”

This phenomenon is such that we humans tend to do a mental, emotional, and/or physiological DUST OFF, just before we take an evolutionary LEAP. In other words, we tend to regress, just before we experience any major personal growth. Other examples lead me back to when our son was an infant and toddler: just before he would take a major leap in independence such as sitting up, crawling, walking, talking, or ceasing to breastfeed, he would seemingly regress emotionally, mentally or physically, such as become quite clingy, needy, have trouble doing things that he was previously proficient at, breastfeed excessively, and so on. And then, boom, he would take a major leap into the next phase of his evolution.

Post becoming aware of this phenomenon, I have witnessed myself, family and friends go through it many times. Just before we are about to let go of a thinking pattern or behavior and adopt a new, more evolutionary one, we tend to burrow back into that pattern or behavior one last time as if to make sure that we are really ready to drop it. It seems as though we need to experience it in a way that leaves us without a doubt that we no longer want it in our lives.

I find that these Dust Offs differ in length and intensity, depending upon the scale of the evolutionary leap that is on the horizon. This last one for me was short and of a medium intensity, ultimately clearing the way for some perspective and behavioral changes and taking steps towards even greater responsibility as a teacher. One of my larger Dust Offs came in the form of two several-month nervous breakdowns over the course of a year, and they were the pre-cursors to my entire perspective and experience of life changing, moving to Maui, leaving the entertainment business and in many ways, beginning my life again: an equitable exchange was had.

The reason I share this observation is that I have found having this knowledge to be quite helpful when in the midst of a DUST OFF. Let’s say we find ourselves engaging in thinking, and/or behaviors that we thought we were done with, we feel really down on ourselves for it, then we remember the DUST OFF phenomenon and become curious, maybe even excited, as to what evolutionary leap may be on the horizon.

When it is time to upgrade our computer software, an often essential part of that process is to do a sweep and delete all files that have become irrelevant in order to make space for the new software to run optimally. This awareness helps us to identify thoughts, emotions and behaviors that the universe is highlighting for deletion and become proactive in that evolutionary deletion process in order to make space for our new thoughts, emotions, behaviors, state of consciousness, to run optimally. Then, we are maybe able to cut ourselves a break for regressing a little, knowing that it is solely a part of the mechanism by which we advance to something greater. And the whole experience can get a little easier.

In order to make this understanding real for you, maybe take some past inventory of periods of major growth in your life and see if you can identify the preceding Dust Off phenomenon that occurred.

365, 24/7, the demand on us from the universe is to change, to evolve. So let’s revel in the DUST OFF and LEAP.

I tried my luck for many years in the control business. I tried to control people, circumstances, creativity, love, you name it. Over and over again, I failed miserably, but stubbornly I kept trying and trying until I ultimately had an acute experience of complete loss of control of myself and therefore my circumstances and in reaction, I fell apart.

It turned out that it was the "complete loss of control" that began my journey toward the deep realization that there are actually only ever five things that we CAN control: our personal thoughts, emotions, energy, speech and actions. In my experience, trying to control anything beyond that is an absolute waist of energy and time.

SURRENDER can be a powerful choice. It’s not about releasing preference, we still have a preference, but we completely surrender control of the outcome. Why? Because if the outcome is different from our preference, based on the experience that there is never anything going on in the universe but evolution, the outcome will undoubtedly be “better,” more evolutionary than whatever our original preference was. The original preference is often merely the means by which the universe put us into motion towards the outcome we most needed to experience. That outcome may be pleasurable, it may be painful, it may be neutral, but it will absolutely be evolutionary for our state of consciousness, knowledge, wisdom, compassion, our capacity to love, you name it.

Surrender is also powerful for me in that when I am able to release control of outcome, I stop resisting what is actually happening, I stop resisting the present moment, the only thing we ever actually have. I realize that no matter the circumstance, it’s not actually the circumstance that is causing me to suffer, it's my resistance to the circumstance that's causing me to suffer. It's actually never the “thing” that’s the problem, it’s my resistance to the “thing” that’s the problem. Replace “thing” with person, situation, emotion, and you get the same truth.

Contrary to sometimes popular belief, surrender is not weak, it is not about letting yourself be taken advantage of, it is not about giving up: it is about total acknowledgement and acceptance of what is currently happening and computing whether or not it is within your power to change it. If so, you take action immediately towards change, if not, you rest in acceptance of what is and surrender completely to the experience. And the amazing thing is, when we surrender to the painful experience that we know we cannot change, it actually ceases to be quite so painful, we are able to receive the infinite guidance emanating from it and often, without friction or strained effort, it changes.

Finally, let's say we've received a desire, a dream, but we are scared because we would have to take a risk in order to go after it and we have no idea how it will turn out. In my experience, when we leap into the unknown, based upon a true desire that will be beneficial for us and all those we come into contact with, the direct result is complete support from the universe. That support, that outcome may or may not look exactly like we planned, but again, whatever it looks like, we can rest assured that it will be whatever is most evolutionary for all.

@mapamaui MAUI DANCERS: expect real talk, yoga, grooves, amazing music and play. Movement will be our vessel along a journey of self-exploration, yet deep in the groove, we find each other.
Look at previous video post for vibe. 📷: @kgphotos_

MAUI. Masterclass. Next Sunday, 9/15. 3p to 5p. @mapamaui

The power of our speech. New blog entry. Enjoy. Link in profile.

A blog post from earlier this year that feels particularly relevant today. Link in profile.